A Canadian reporter writes about David Mabus, real name Dennis Markuze, the lunatic who leaves comments and sends threatening emails to me, PZ and a hundred other people every day.

A Montreal man who uses the name David Mabus, and who has been identified as Dennis Markuze of Saint-Laurent, Qué., has allegedly been issuing death threats to American science journalists and bloggers over the course of the past three years, first by email and lately via twitter. However, despite repeated complaints to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and Montreal City Police (SVPM), no action has been taken.

All true. PZ has turned over all those materials many times and nothing has happened. You’d think after seeing all kinds of loonies snap, from the whacko who tried to blow up the Tides Foundation to the Norway terrorist, you’d think the police would take this kind of thing more seriously. But nope, Markuze continues to send us all death threats on a daily basis and they don’t do a damn thing about it.

Considering the number of death threats and abuse researchers in Montreal receive from around the world, it is appalling and shameful that our own police service is not acting rapidly and decisively to protect their international colleagues. It is appalling and shameful that our police react promptly to threats to Quebec journalists but not to those based abroad. The SPVM on the other hand has claimed that they have not received any reports, but that concerned citizens may forward any information they may have to relations.medias@spvm.qc.ca for referral.

“My big concern is that he needs to be taken in and evaluated psychologically, and it needs to happen before he does something violent that matches his words,” Farley said. Markuze is known to hang around science events in Montreal – the following photo was taken of him at the American Atheist Convention which took place here in October 2010. In other words, it appears that Markuze is moving off the Internet and into the real world. Action needs to be taken now, before someone gets hurt.

I couldn’t agree more. This guy should be in a rubber room in a straight jacket, where he can’t hurt anyone.

Update: PZ reports that the police have opened an investigation into Markuze. But the guy’s mother actually defends him. The nut clearly doesn’t fall far from the tree.

I’ll have to forward to the cops my archive of DM lunacy. I’ve saved over 200 messages — most of them death threats — from him. Of course, PZ gets that many from DM in just a couple of days, that’s how obsessive-compulsive the loon is.

P.S.: It’s “straitjacket.”

Rick R

“…has allegedly been issuing death threats to American science journalists and bloggers over the course of the past three years”

Three years? PZ reports he’s been dealing with this nutter for FIFTEEN years.

Rick R

*checks* Make that EIGHTEEN years.

Alareth

What I find hilarious is that Mabus has started spamming the comments on the poll calling for the police to take action against him as well as including the Montreal police in his twitter ranting.

The fact that he’s no longer willing to hide behind an anonymous internet persona is disturbing to say the least.

Jayke in SF

Over at Slacktivist — Slacktivist of all places, a liberal evangelical blog — Markuze has been leaving inflammatory and threatening messages involving beheading, execution, and similar such things for years. So it’s not only non-theists that this kid has been harrassing, it’s anyone he gets into his head disagrees with his world view

Apparently the fact that he’s been making threats for so long and hasn’t done anything but bluster electronically proves that the threats aren’t serious.

I’m assuming your remark is based upon your being a mental health expert and knowing that there is, in fact, a set time frame in which a person making threats will act upon them, and, once that time frame expires, it is 100% certain that he never will. Or am I wrong?

schism

So it’s not only non-theists that this kid has been harrassing, it’s anyone he gets into his head disagrees with his world view

Honestly, Markuze’s targeting seems to work like a game of Humans and Zombies. If he, through any means, no matter what the content, finds his way to a site or blog, that site is tagged and he includes it in his death threat barrages.

Alan Macphail

Canada police forces are very legalistic when it suits their purpose. If you haven’t filled out the proper forms and/or made a formal complaint directly to “member” (officer) who subsequently files the proper forms, then no “report” has been received.

Here is the relevant part of the Criminal Code of Canada

Uttering threats

264.1 (1) Every one commits an offence who, in any manner, knowingly utters, conveys or causes any person to receive a threat

(a) to cause death or bodily harm to any person;

(b) to burn, destroy or damage real or personal property; or

(c) to kill, poison or injure an animal or bird that is the property of any person.

Punishment

(2) Every one who commits an offence under paragraph (1)(a) is guilty of

(a) an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years; or

(b) an offence punishable on summary conviction and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding eighteen months.

Idem

(3) Every one who commits an offence under paragraph (1)(b) or (c)

(a) is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding two years; or

(b) is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.

R.S., 1985, c. 27 (1st Supp.), s. 38;

1994, c. 44, s. 16.

That seems straight forward enough but to see what the Crown and the judge have to go through try this link:

This is an opportunity for news media in both the US and Canada. Instead of waiting until someone dies violently and then lamenting with headlines like: “THEY MISSED ALL THE SIGNS,” media should be exposing the phenomenon of authorities ignoring death threats.

I could see a Newsweek cover with: “IS LAW ENFORCEMENT BRUSHING OFF EMAIL THREATS” in large red letters and sidebar stories as:

“Where does free speech criticism cross the line to death threat?”

“PZ Myers; after fifteen years of receiving death threats officials do nothing.”

Good: maybe he’ll threaten the cops, and then they’ll have to take notice.

Redneck cop reaction to being threatened by the insane is not “taking notice” – it usually involves taserings and beatings. I wouldn’t wish that on a mentally disordered patient. Markuze needs help, which he clearly isn’t getting from his care-giver (his mom) or his country’s medical system. Turning to the police as a last resort is dangerous and the fact that nobody responsible has done anything to help, so far, in spite of repeated complaints, is a shame.

Although I consider Dennis Markuze to be a potentially dangerous person who needs to be securely confined to a psychiatric facility and treated for whatever condition he is afflicted with, I have a considerable amount of sympathy for him. He never asked to end up this way. He can’t help that psychological demons are torturing him.

There is no biblical hell, but that does not mean Markuze is not living in his own hell. Looking through his tortured mind’s eye at the world is not something I would wish on anyone. I hope Markuze gets the help he so desperately needs, but I kind of doubt he will get it. That the Montreal Police and his own mother are so blase as to the seriousness of what’s going on tells me Dennis Markuze will remain alone, trapped in the hellishness of his own mind, for a long time. All one can do is to keep publicly shaming the Montreal Police Department, while hoping Markuze’s behavior doesn’t escalate even further than it already has.

I wrote about a another Canadian using the net to make threats back in 2008. He’s still at it, despite numerous complaints from different people to the police.

harold

Redneck cop reaction to being threatened by the insane is not “taking notice” – it usually involves taserings and beatings.

This kind of stereotyping of everyone who works in law enforcement annoys me. It annoys me because I personally know of examples of police being extremely professional and helpful when dealing with severely mentally ill people.

It’s one thing – and a good thing – to criticize the many abuses by unprofessional jerks. I am a “civil rights absolutist” who condemns all police brutality and misconduct. But they don’t make the laws, and a lot of them do a much better job than many people realize.

Who do you think is likely to have to deal with a mentally ill, probably harmful to himself and others, escalating guy like this?

Do you think a psychiatrist is going to make a house call? Do you think a social worker is going to set up an appointment and he’ll keep it?

He spends his day obsessively making death threats, is escalating, and is almost certain to try to refuse any kind of treatment. It’s a job for the “first responders”. No-one else can or will do it. Go up there and try to talk him into being sensible if you want.

Incidentally, I don’t mean to sound too grouchy. (Too late?) I’m a dual citizen, I got my biology degree in Montreal, I love the place, and I have relatives there. I have also had at least two positive encounters with very professional police officers there, even though the force as a whole does has had a mixed reputation in the past.

Eddy Spillane

Dennis Markuze is not violent or dangerous. How do I know? Because I am.

I hunt for sport and own knives and guns. My nickname is Killer. I enjoy a good kill like most people enjoy a good bubble bath.

On the other hand, Markuze is a crazy, spineless mumma’s boy who types letters on the internet. He’s hardly a threat.

If I spotted him at a convention I could easily stalk him like prey, till he was alone somewhere far away from the venue, then put my rubber gloves on, come up behind him and open up his throat like a little lamb. I would enjoy it, too. And never get caught.

Why? Because I’M NOT A FUCKING MORON LIKE DENNIS FUCKING MARKUZE. He doesn’t deserve to die, but I’d kill him because I just don’t like him. Come on, be honest, you feel the same way!

This will probably never happen, unfortunately, because I live a world away from Montreal and plan to keep it that way.

But I still can’t help but think that you should all just turn on your spam block and STFU.

He’s annoying, and you’re trying to use legal routes to stop an annoyance. Never trust the cops to do this job for you.

If you want a lump of biological trash like Markuze gone you just need to find someone like me. Problem solved.

But you’re all so deluded as to believe the police will help. I have to laugh at that. Loudly.

Eddy Spillane

See, nature has procedures for dealing with these aberrant individuals.

Markuze needs “help” like a zombie ant infected with a parasite needs “help”; ie. he needs to be picked up and carried away from the nest and destroyed, just like ants do.

He’s a malfunctioning unit and he should be put down. Just talking about it while looking at his photo is giving me all kinds of ideas on how I could make it last longer…

Man, what a dead-set broken unit he is. It’s like looking at the Uncanny Valley of sanity. He LOOKS like a human being, but he’s not quite…

GravityIsJustATheory

Okaaayyy…

Clearly, Markuze in’t the only crazy, potentially dangerous psycho on the internets.

DaveL

He doesn’t deserve to die, but I’d kill him because I just don’t like him. Come on, be honest, you feel the same way!

Everybody remembers that line as being more dramatic than it actually is. IMO Sidney Poitier screwed up the line big time. He should have been screaming and slamming desks or something. That’s how people remember it. (And then they go look at it and wonder what the hell.)

llewelly

Spillane vs. Markuze : The death-threat version of crank magnetism.

I hope Spillane never ends up anywhere near Markuze.

harold

I hunt for sport and own knives and guns. My nickname is Killer. I enjoy a good kill like most people enjoy a good bubble bath.

On the other hand, Markuze is a crazy, spineless mumma’s boy who types letters on the internet. He’s hardly a threat.

Organized legal hunting is not strongly associated with violence against humans. In fact, many of the states with the highest rates of hunting have the lowest rates of homicide.

Threatening other human beings is associated with violence against humans.

As a general rule, if there is any association between such things as hunting skill, martial arts expertise, physical fitness, military training, etc, and homicide, relative to an appropriate control group, it is weak.

Mentally ill people as a group aren’t dangerous, but those whose mental illness compels them to constant threats of violence need to be taken seriously. People like Seung-Hui Chu or Jared Lee Loughner don’t act out because they’re “tough”, they act out because they are driven by severe mental illness.